Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee
| religion= , | birth= | death= | cause of death= | occupation= , politician, nobility | spouse= Violet Millar ( ) | children= Four | family = | political party = | military branch = British Army ( ) | political office = Postmaster General Minister of Defence (1945-1951)}} Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC (3 January 1883 – 8 October 1967) was a British democratic socialist politician, who was elected as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1945. He had served as Deputy Prime Minister under Winston Churchill in the wartime coalition government, before leading the Labour Party to a landslide election victory over Churchill at the 1945 general election. He was the first Labour Prime Minister to serve a full Parliamentary term and the first to have a majority in Parliament. Attlee's ministry was dedicated to rebuilding the post-war U.K., establishing a variety of programs based on democratic socialist principles, which saw nationalization of a number of services, an emphasis on income equality and worker's rights, and decolonization abroad. While Attlee initially sought to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union, he came to see the USSR as a possible threat, and grew much closer to the West as the Cold War began. While Attlee held his office after the 1950 election, it was by a thin margin. Labour, now an aging party with little in the way of new ideas, was divided by a number of issues. In a bid to shore his party's majority, Attlee called for snap elections in 1951, but the plan backfired, and Labour instead lost to the Conservatives. Attlee was succeeded by his predecessor, Winston Churchill. Attlee continued as Labour's leader, but met with increasing challenges from within his party. He contested the 1955 election, but the Conservatives held the government. In the aftermath of this defeat, he retired from the party, but maintained his social activism. He died in 1967 after contracting pneumonia. Clement Attlee in The Hot War Clement Attlee was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War III.Bombs Away, pg. 89, HC. }} Prior to World War III, the United Kingdom, under Attlee's direction, contributed troops to the UN forces during the Korean War.See, e.g., Bombs Away, pg. 88, ebook. Britain also maintained an occupation zone in West Germany.Ibid. pg. 15. Consequently, when the United States used atomic bombs in Manchuria on 23 January 1951,Ibid., pgs. 53-55. the UK was the target of a Soviet retaliatory attack on 1 February, which destroyed Norwich and Aberdeen. France and West Germany also suffered the loss of two cities each.Ibid., pg. 65-70. Prime Minister Attlee and French President Vincent Auriol immediately contacted U.S. President Harry Truman, invoking the NATO treaty.Ibid., pg. 86. Truman, in the hopes of mollifying his allies, ordered a mission to bomb Pechenga, the base where the Soviet bombers had flown out of. Truman even used flyers from Britain and France.Ibid., pgs. 87-90. After this initial attack, Britain proper went largely unmolested for the next few months. British forces met the Soviet invasion of West Germany when the ground war phase of World War III began in earnest later in February.Ibid., pg. 111. Mid-April saw the Soviets launch a series of bombing raids against British airfields, using conventional explosives. While the attacks were destructive, in many ways, they were a nuisance compared with the atomic attacks.Ibid., pgs. 278-280. In fact the British (and allied) war effort was hindered in April when the Soviets were able to get an atomic bomb into on a freighter and detonated it in the Suez Canal, thoroughly destroying the canal.Ibid., pg. 295. The USSR continued to use conventional ordinance until September 11, 1951, when the Soviets finally dropped an atom bomb on Sculthorpe. The explosion there was large enough to level half the buildings in the nearby town of Fakenham.Fallout, loc. 2428-2487, ebook. However, these were the last atomic bombs the U.K. were subjected to. For the remainder of the year and into May, 1952, Soviet Soviet Beagles dropped conventional ordinance on the U.K.Ibid., loc. 7041-7104 Britain kept fighting in Western Europe throughout the remainder of the war. In May, 1952, the United States was able to locate Joseph Stalin in Omsk, and deployed the new hydrogen bomb against the city. Stalin was among those killed.Armistice, pgs. 69-78, ebook. While Lavrenty Beria succeeded Stalin, his reign lasted a few weeks, and he was ousted by Vyacheslav Molotov, who requested a formal peace with the U.S.Ibid., loc. 2037. In July, 1952, Attlee traveled to France for the final peace talks with Molotov at Versailles. He was joined by Harry Truman, and hosted by Charles de Gaulle.Ibid., pg. 153. Over dinner, on the eve of the first day of talks, Attlee noted that if not for the war, the British might have had an election the previous year. Truman admitted that he might have to make a similar decision, given the chaos with which the U.S. government was still dealing.Ibid, pgs. 155-156. De Gaulle arranged for negotiations to be held at the palace at Versailles, a symbolic gesture that was lost on nobody.Ibid., pgs. 154-155. Truman and Molotov were the primary negotiators, though both Attlee and de Gaulle backed Truman, particularly Truman's demand that the USSR refrain from using atomic weapons to bring their satellites back in line.Ibid., pgs. 155-157. Clement Attlee in The Man With the Iron Heart Clement Attlee's government was troubled from the start. Despite Germany's total defeat in 1945, an organized resistance movement called the German Freedom Front, led by Reinhard Heydrich, immediately began inflicting casualties on Allied troops.The Man With the Iron Heart, generally. In 1946, Attlee's government received a substantial black eye when Heydrich personally led a mission to kidnap several German physicists the British were holding in Alswede.Ibid., pg. 182. In 1947, GFF men successfully snuck into London, and destroyed St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey with truck bombs.Ibid., pg. 319-322. Making matters worse, Attlee received substantial criticism from his predecessor, Winston Churchill.Ibid., pg. 324. Attlee issued a statement condemning the attacks and affirming Britain's commitment to the occupation. He then ordered the rebuilding of the two monuments.Ibid. Attacks continued on British occupation forces though, and the British abandoned their efforts to garrison Germany at the same time as the U.S. Quotes "The Germans show why their ancestors were named Vandals. Destruction and murder for the sake of destruction and murder will settle nothing, and will only rouse the hatred of the civilized world."Ibid., p. 323-324. Clement Attlee in ''Joe Steele'' Clement Attlee succeeded Winston Churchill as Prime Minister in 1945. However, he was not invited to participate in the Wakamatsu Conference by U.S. President Joe Steele or Soviet leader Leon Trotsky, as the United Kingdom had no role in the invasion of Japan. This slight on the part of Steele and Trotsky demonstrated how much the post-war world would be dominated by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.''Joe Steele'', pg. 326. References }} Category:Earls Category:Knights (OTL) Category:Ministers of Defence (UK) Category:Inconsistencies Category:Postmasters General